If Taylor Swift ever believed she had bad blood before, boy does she have it now. Over her birthday weekend, the young queen of pop watched a bomb with her name on it explode after the famed feminist critic Camille Paglia published a shockingly scathing attack on Swift, calling her a blond, elitist “Nazi Barbie.”

Yes, such a cheap and sensationalist shot at a fellow female comes from one of America’s most well-known and respected feminist writers. Paglia is a self-proclaimed “notorious Amazon feminist” and isn’t exactly your stereotypical bra-burning, Birkenstock-wearing feminist. Her ideology is as nuanced as her interpretation of feminism is hard to pin down.

Nonetheless, Paglia is a feminist warrior at heart, fighting for every woman’s right to succeed, thrive and pursue her wildest dreams. Incidentally, Taylor Swift has done just that, becoming the de facto poster child of big-picture feminist philosophy. For Paglia to rip Swift to shreds, even stooping to associate her with fascism, is a lesson in hyperbolic hypocrisy.

Camille PagliaGetty

Swift is a feminist’s dream mostly come true. She is young, smart, self-made, mind-bogglingly successful, in charge and fiercely independent, both in business and in her personal life; she is unmarried and runs her personal brand with an I-make-my-own-decisions attitude. Swift has power, control and command of her life, all the things today’s young women are told to pursue.

And Swift has a gently rebellious independence of character, too. She doesn’t bow to Hollywood’s pressure to strip and sex-scandal her way to the top, nor does she seem to have let the enormous weight of fame and wealth transform her into a vain, vacuous, self-obsessed starlet. On the contrary, Swift is humble, cheerful and miraculously down-to-earth, and as loyal to her fans as they are to her. Indeed, Swift is the embodiment of Coco Chanel’s oft-repeated admonition that a woman be two things: classy and fabulous.

Any true feminist should be falling at this girl’s feet — by her early twenties, Swift became the personification of modern feminism, queen of the pop culture world, commanding the attention and adoration of millions of females inspired by the heights to which a small-town girl can soar.

So what is it about Taylor that Paglia dislikes? Apparently, Swift has too many wildly successful female friends. Paglia doesn’t like the girl-power #girlsquad trend that Swift has recently embraced by spending so much time in public and on social media with other successful and independent superstars.

Strangely, Paglia suggests that Swift and her posse “study the immensely productive dynamic of male bonding in history.” (Forget for a moment the delicious irony of a feminist advising young women to copy men.) How much more “immensely productive” and successful could Swift and many of her friends possibly be? These women practically run the pop music world!

Paglia goes on to admonish Swift and friends to “cut back on the socializing and focus like a laser on their creative gifts.” Yet that is precisely what Taylor Swift has done, and that laser-like focus is precisely what enabled her to reach the top of the celebrity ladder.

Furthermore, Swift and her friends are the picture of the “natural solidarity and companionship” that Paglia claims modern women have lost. Swift herself has never made news by sowing discord or spreading insults or gossip. In fact, she’s only ever done the opposite, regularly praising her friends in her music and on social media, including them in her creative work and inviting them on stage to share and celebrate their “creative gifts” together. (And there are plenty of flashy, arrogant, vain starlets who would never share the limelight.)

This is part of Swift’s charm — she offers a profoundly healthier portrayal of sisterhood than many women encounter when watching the drama, jealousy and cat-fighting that often plague female relationships in movies, television and even sometimes in the real world.

Philosophical nuances aside, Paglia and Swift really are on the same side, which makes Paglia’s efforts to undermine the “female solidarity” she claims to want to promote all the more disappointing.

In response to Paglia’s confusing, nasty and sensationalist attack, Ms. Swift responded with silence, the way any respectable woman probably would. In the Paglia-Swift tug-of-war, one woman won without ever stooping to pick up the rope. Talk about classy and fabulous.